Match-maker, match-maker, make me a match!

This blog post has been a long time coming. I couldn't write it due to a long running practical joke which finally came to a conclusion last week. A large segment of my friend base believed that I came back engaged after my trip back to Sri Lanka due to a story dreamed up by one of my best friends. Of course I decided to fan the flames of that story (all the while dropping hints) in order to see who would smell the rat and who would stay gullible. 

The best lies are the ones which are half true and now dear reader, I can divulge what actually happened on my trip away in Sri Lanka.

Whilst overseas, my dad decided to take me to my uncle's home for a 'catch up' with the family and 'some close family friends'. I've known for a while that my folks have been searching for partners for me, but this was six days into the holiday and without any smell of a setup, I had gotten complacent. By the time dinner was done the 'family friends' had come over and with a daughter in tow, I knew it was a setup**. I was furious, but couldn't make a scene in front of two families so I put on a smiling face and greeted the family and the girl.

The unfortunate thing was, she was one hell of a catch. She was very forward, played sports, had an active social life, was a wonderful pianist (my dad requested her to play) and she was pretty. It was unfortunate because being the moron that I was, I decided to be somewhere between civil and friendly instead of going all out to make an positive impression. Whilst still annoyed at being in the dark about all this, I still kicked myself for botching it up. Especially since my family had gone to a lot of effort already, I decided to give this entire process a fair go and went ahead to the various setups my parents had filtered.

Girl 2: Worked in IT as a tester. I was utterly charming and she made for decent conversation. On paper it made for a reasonable match, but in reality, there was a significant lack of chemistry from my side. There simply wasn't the spark there was with the first girl.

Girl 3: Was in the middle of NOWHERE. It was a 3 hour drive through god-knows-where to get there. By the time I got there, my back was killing me from the driving and I was hardly in the mood to be charming. Luckily enough, she really wasn't my type. Way too timid for someone with an personality like mine and she just couldn't make conversation.

Girl 4: Utterly disillusioned by this point, I spent most of this one playing with my 6 year old cousin whilst my dad did the interrogation. She looked as disinterested in being there as I was, so luckily this ended quickly.

The idea is the next time I return that I have another look, but this is giving me good incentive to avoid going back for a while.

So the irony here is that I put some really high artificial barriers to entry when I'm interacting with the ladies in SL, but over here I'm knocked over by the first pretty face which is nice to me. It is an awful double standard. So, with not much happening here and no real wish to go back and continue the Sri Lankan match making process, I'm stuck.

In order to get out of my current rut, Cat told me to get myself on RSVP, which initially seems like an extreme measure until you strip away the emotional aspects. This is a classic Long Tail situation. Think about it this way. A lot of hookups and lot of incredibly good looking people appear in bars and pubs. But that said, your typical bar/pub only appeals to about 5-10% of the population you could date. Distribution is difficult because it usually requires a significant amount of courage to present yourself to another person. Filtering is impossible, because even if you could hear over the awful music, people don't tell you enough about them to make a informed decision (well unless you just want a shag, in which case the looks are enough data).

Enter the Internet.

Places like RSVP, Lava and the myriad other sites represent the long tail of the dating market. 

There are thousands of people available on these sites, and whilst they don't currently represent everyone, they would probably cover another 40% of the potential market.

Distribution is easy, everyone places information about themselves onto the website, filling out what they are like. Anyone with access to a computer can do it, you don't need to argue with bouncers and its for the most part free! 

Of course with this many people on the net, it makes it even more difficult to find someone you like. Luckily there are filtering mechanisms. Being able to filter out on age, race, pets, preferences towards Star Trek vs Star Wars, almost anything, gives unbelievable ability to find someone who you might be compatible with. The 'relative' anonymity of the process also improves chances of personalities being correctly portrayed rather than the usual mask people wear in public. Unfortunately you also miss 60% of the conversation due to the lack of body language. 

It would be funny if there was a rating system for people as well, in the same vein as Amazon. "I dated James for two years, it was awesome. Highly recommended" - 5 Stars. It would highly flawed since the biggest problem is that breakups nearly always result in 1 star ratings of each other regardless of how '5 star' you were in the 'honeymoon' stage. But I digress.

So with this many great reasons to be listed, why am I not? I don't know, but I suspect its the same naive reason every other single person uses. We're all waiting for our Princess Charming to come along and whisk us away to somewhere beautiful.

** For those who are unaware of Sri Lankan custom, matchmaking is a fairly common occurrence even today. Both boy and girl have full control over the process and the family who does the match making simply act like a dating service, except with pre-approval from the parents already granted (since they helped set you up remember). After you find someone you like you conduct a normal courtship and if that fails, you start again. My cousin went through 89 girls before he found the right girl for him (and he's still happily married with several beautiful kids). In general the program has a incredibly high success rate.